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Friday, November 2

Evil Queen

As mentioned, our trip to Orlando was great.  The screening went well, they took home a prize, it really justified going to that particular film festival.  During the rest of the week, we went to Island of Adventure, the evening Halloween at Universal (which is actually scary), Disney Hollywood Studios and ended with the Magic Kingdom and Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween.  Mr. Lina was the photographer for the trip but we took the little point & shoot, not the good camera so not all of the pictures are of the best quality.

I did take a lot of me-made clothing, but looking through pictures, it's hard to tell.  The night I wore a Sorbetto to the Universal Halloween it was freaking cold so I have a coat covering it.  I took the bathing suit I made but again, too cold to wear it.

Last time I talked about my costume plans, I was annoyed by the options in stores.  Either they were too trampy for Disney or just a tube of crushed velvet (and not in the right colours at that) or I'd have to sift through a ton of stuff at Value Village and I didn't have time.  I did find more purple stretch crushed velvet, but when I got home I found they were not even close to being the same purple.  What I had was more blue purple and the one I bought was almost raspberry.  I opted to start from scratch with the new fabric.  I'll cut up the other fabric in to something else so it won't go to waste.  Our camera batteries died as we were dressing up at the car to return to the park, this is the only picture I have of me in the costume at the moment.

The first time I've had to ask if my eyebrows were even.
In starting again with lots of fabric to work from, I thought I'd do less draping and work with a pattern I knew.  Renfrew to the rescue!  Yes, I know that's not a dress, and yes, it has sleeves, but this was a slap dash costume and at least I knew it would fit my bust/shoulders/waist.  Here is what I did:
  1. I cut the front and back for the cowl version because it was already traced.
  2. I extended the pieces from the hip with just a very slight A line to the length of my body.
  3. I added in godets at the side to give a little more freedom of movement but the end result still fell straight down to my feet at the front.
  4. I turned and zig zagged the arm holes rather than adding sleeves (expecting it to be hot)
  5. I did stablize the shoulders as suggested in the pattern.
  6. I tried steam a seam at the back neckline but I found it hard to work with on the curved neckline and fabric that didn't like pressing so I gave up for the other seams. 
  7. On the plus side,  I think it will keep that from stretching out given that I didn't do the proper U neck and it made the back easy to identify when getting dressed.
In the end, it skims my curves nicely but kept everything covered up.  It was cold the night of the event, down to about 8C.  Fortunately my costume had a cape, but I wore a black tshirt under the dress for an extra layer which actually worked well as the Evil Queen has the black hood starting under her purple dress.

I didn't take a crown with me, I thought it would be the easiest part of the costume to purchase at the park.  I mean really, it's Disney, land of princesses and queens.  What I ended up with was a tiara with a picture of Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty on the centre.  I blacked that out with mascara so it looked a little less happy princess-y.  Given that I think it was made for kids and my head is not small, I was really impressed at how it stayed put on my head.  I took it off for Space Mountain, but past that I wore it.

With our new flight, we still got home just in time to hand out treats to about 40 kids.  Less than we usually get but not bad considering it was cold and raining and we got a bit of a late start.  I quickly pulled out the dress and my cape from my luggage while Mr. Lina set up ghost lights and tested out his new smoke machine and we had a great time.  I have taken to handing out envelopes of hot chocolate for Halloween and I must remember for next year that with marshmallows was the preference by the vast majority.

And my favourite picture from the trip...
Snuggles on the boat at Downtown Disney.

4 comments:

  1. I really like the idea of handing out hot chocolate for Halloween. Hubby says it might get expensive if we had too many trick or treaters, but I bet we could find it cheaper in bulk packages at Sam's (Walmart's bulk store) or something.

    Glad that you had a good time, I can't believe it was so cold, our Halloween evening was beautiful, it was probably around 65*F, but that's really warm for us, considering I remember trick or treating in the snow more than once as a kid. Your costume looks really good, especially for being a last minute kind of thing. :-)

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    1. I have a bit of a connection for hot chocolate a little over cost, it works out to about 13 cents per package. The good part is I'm not as likely to sit and eat it before the kids arrive.

      At home it rained for Halloween. Not hard, but enough for it to feel cold and damp. That hurricane really shook up the weather all across the eastern part of North America.

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  2. it was cold for you? So jealous! We broiled at MNSSHP this year! I usually plan the costumes around he husban not overhating, but this year I was roasty. I wouldn't miss that party tho- love it!

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    1. It was crazy how much the weather changed from the forcasts. It made spending the full day at the parks easier, but the evenings were pretty chilly. I loved the party too, I can see why you continue to go.

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